Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T09:29:52.920Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Working toward play: Complexity in children's fantasy activities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2009

Marilyn R. Whalen
Marilyn R. Whalen
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97402-1291
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Children's play activities are widely perceived as developing from primitive to increasingly complex forms of social organization, as children mature and acquire interactional competency. Research following this traditional, developmentally oriented approach postulates that sports and games with rules are the most advanced and complex form of play activity; activities involving fantasy and pretend-play are viewed in comparison as considerably less complex. This article argues that fantasy play encounters exhibit complex features in their own right, and that long-held distinctions between higher-order games and fantasy play are conceptually overdrawn. The argument is grounded in a conversation analytic study of the play activities of a cross-sex, mixed-age neighborhood play group. This analysis focuses on the endogenous social organization of a fantasy play encounter. (Conversation analysis, children's play, socialization, social psychology)

Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , June 1995 , pp. 315 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adler, Peter, & Adler, Patricia (1986), eds. Sociological studies of child development, vol. 1. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Atkinson, J. Maxwell, & Heritage, John (1984), eds. Structures of social action. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berentzen, Sigurd (1989). Children constructing their social world: An analysis of gender contrast in children's interaction in a nursery school. (Bergen Occasional Papers in Social Anthropology, 36.) Bergen, Norway: University of Bergen, Department of Social Anthropology.Google Scholar
Blau, Peter, & Schoenherr, R. A. (1971). The structure of organizations. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Bloom, Lois (1970). Language development: Form and function in emerging grammars. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Corsaro, William (1979a). “We're friends, right?”: Children's use of access rituals in a nursery school. Language in Society 8:315–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corsaro, William (1979b). Young children's conception of status and role. Sociology of Education 52:46–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corsaro, William (1981). Entering the child's world: Research strategies for field entry and data collection in a preschool setting. In Green, Judith L. & Wallat, Cynthia (eds.), Ethnography and language in educational settings, 117–48. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Corsaro, William (1992). Interpretive reproduction in children's peer culture. Social Psychology Quarterly 55:160–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denzin, Norman K. (1975). Play, games and interaction: The contexts of childhood socialization. Sociological Quarterly 16:458–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eder, Donna, & Enke, Janet L. (1991). The structure of gossip: Opportunities and constraints. American Sociological Review 56:494–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenberg, Ann (1980). A semantic, syntactic and pragmatic analysis of the acquisition of conjunction. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, Stanford University, 19:70–78.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, Ann, & Garvey, Catherine (1981). Children's use of verbal strategies in resolving conflicts. Discourse Processes 4:149–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Etzioni, Amitai (1969). A sociological reader on complex organization. New York: Holt.Google Scholar
Fine, Gary Alan (1987). With the boys. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, Gary Alan, & Glassner, Barry (1979). Participant observations with children: Promise and problems. Urban Life 8:153–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forbes, David; Katz, Mary; Paul, Barry; & Lubin, David (1982). Children's plans for joining play: An analysis of structure and function. In Forbes, David & Greenberg, Mark (eds.), Children's planning strategies, 61–79. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold (1988). Evidence for the locally produced, naturally accountable phenomena of order, logic, reason, meaning, method, etc. in and as of the essential quiddity of immortal ordinary society (I of IV): An announcement of studies. Sociological Theory 6:103–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garvey, Catherine (1974). Some properties of social play. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 20:163–80.Google Scholar
Garvey, Catherine (1984). Children's talk. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles, & Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (1990). Interstitial argument. In Grimshaw, Allen D. (ed.), Conflict talk, 85–117. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (1980). “He-said-she-said”: Formal cultural procedures for the construction of a gossip dispute activity. American Ethnologist 7:674–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (1983). Aggravated correction and disagreement in children's conversations. Journal of Pragmatics 7:657–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness. (1990). He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization among Black children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness. (1995). Assembling a response: Setting and collaboratively constructed work talk. In Psathas, George & Have, Paul ten (eds.), Situated order: Studies in the social organization of talk and embodied activities, 173–86. Washington DC: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen (1987). “Bushes all the way down”. Natural History 96: 12–19.Google Scholar
Hartup, Willard W. (1978). Children and their friends. In McGurk, Harry (ed.), Child social development, 130–70. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Heritage, John (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Oxford: Polity.Google Scholar
Hewitt, John P. (1993). Self and society: A symbolic interactionist social psychology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Hughes, Linda A. (1988). “But that's not really mean”: Competing in a cooperative mode. Sex Roles 19:669–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keenan, Elinor Ochs (1974). Conversational competence in children. Journal of Child Language 1:163–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keenan, Elinor Ochs (1977). Making it last: Uses of repetition in children's discourse. In Ervin-Tripp, Susan & Mitchell-Kernan, Claudia (eds.), Child discourse, 125–38. New York: Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lever, Janet (1976). Sex differences in the games children play. Social Problems 23:478–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lever, Janet (1978). Sex differences in the complexity of children's play and games. American Sociological Review 43:471–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandell, Nancy (1986). Peer interaction in daycare settings: Implications for social cognition. In Adler, & Adler, , 55–79.Google Scholar
Mandell, Nancy (1988). The least adult role in studying children. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 16: 433–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard, Douglas W. (1985a). How children start arguments. Language in Society 14: 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard, Douglas W. (1985b). On the functions of social conflict among children. American Sociological Review 50: 207–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard, Douglas W. (1986a). The development of argumentative skills among children. In Adler, & , Adler, 261–85.Google Scholar
Maynard, Douglas W. (1986b). Offering and soliciting collaboration in multi-party disputes among children (and other humans). Human Studies 9: 261–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mead, George H.. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Meehan, Albert J. (1990). Rule recognition and social competence: The case of children's play and games. In Cahill, Spencer (ed.), Sociological studies of child development, vol. 3, 245–61. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Piaget, Jean (1962). Play, dreams, and imitation in childhood. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Piaget, Jean (1974). The language and thought of the child. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita (1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In Atkinson, & Heritage, , 57–101.Google Scholar
Putallaz, Martha, & Gottman, John (1981). Social skills and group acceptance. In Asher, Steven & Gottman, John (eds.), The development of children's friendships, 116–49. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rubin, Kenneth, & Dyck, Louisa (1980). Preschoolers' private speech in a play setting. MerrillPalmer Quarterly 26: 219–29.Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey (1984). Notes on methodology. In Atkinson, & Heritage, , 21–27.Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey (1992). “We”: Category-bound activities. In his Lectures on conversation, ed. by Jefferson, Gail, 333–47. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1987). Analyzing single episodes of conversation: An exercise in conversation analysis. Social Psychology Quarterly 50: 101–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schieffelin, Bambi B. (1981). Talking like birds: Sound play in a cultural perspective. In Loy, John (ed.), The paradoxes of play, 177–84. New York: Leisure.Google Scholar
Schwartzman, Helen (1978). Transformations: The anthropology of children's play. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Streeck, Jurgen (1984). Social order in child communication: A study in micro-ethnography. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Sutton-Smith, Brian (1979). The play of girls. In Kopp, Claire B. (ed.), Becoming female: Perspectives on development, 229–57. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, Lev S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waxler, Frances Chaput (1986). Studying children: Phenomenological insights. Human Studies 9: 171–82.Google Scholar
Wertsch, James (1985a). Introduction. In Wertsch, James V. (ed.), Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives, 1–50. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wertsch, James (1985b). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Whalen, Jack; Zimmerman, Don H.; & Whalen, Marilyn R. (1988). When words fail: A single case analysis. Social Problems 35: 335–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whalen, Marilyn, & Zimmerman, Don H. (1990). Describing trouble: Practical epistemology in citizen calls to the police. Language in Society 19: 465–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, Don H., & Pollner, Melvin (1970). The everyday world as a phenomenon. In Douglas, Jack (ed.), Understanding everyday life: Toward the reconstruction of everyday knowledge, 80–103. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar